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The summer that never was
May. 2nd, 2020 10:53 amSince the lockdown began, I've been reading, posting daily on here, and... well, not much else, really. I was amused by "shelf obsession", an arrangement of book titles by printmaker Phil Shaw, described here:
https://www.rebeccahossack.com/artists/72-phil-shaw/overview/
After a friend asked if I was tempted to arrange books on our shelves here to tell my own story, it gave me pause. I may yet try it. But here's a title that come fall of 2020, will probably describe what we're now on the threshold of:
https://inspectorbanks.com/books/the-summer-that-never-was/
Usually I look forward to summer. Outdoor barbecues and picnics at Vincent Massey Park. Music and Beyond. Chamberfest. Folkfest or Cityfolk. Shakespeare plays performed in our local parks. Odyssey Theatre at Strathcona Park. Blockbuster art exhibits at the National Gallery and the Ottawa Art Gallery. The big book sale put on by the Friends of the Experimental Farm. The Victorian Tea. Usually a couple of trips a week to wander through Parkdale Market and stop at the Shouldice stand to pick up locally grown strawberries. Spur-of-the-moment trips to Purple Cow on Colonnade Road to get ice cream cones. Tasting interesting new beers at Beyond the Pale.
Ant then there's travel. This weekend was supposed to be Ad Astra weekend in Toronto. I hadn't registered to go, but I had all kinds of projects I wanted to accomplish while I had the house to myself. Usually my partner attends BSDCan in June, which again I look forward to in terms of please-myself me time. I myself was planning to go to Toronto later this month for the Bony Blithe crime fiction mini-con. And in August, I had planned a trip to Dublin for the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), held each year in a different city.
None of the above will be happening this year.
Strangely enough, as the weather starts to get nice like it is today, I seem to feel MORE dispirited, not less. It's that feeling that by the time we're released from confinement, the weather will be getting cold again, with freezing rain and drizzle and eventually snow... all the things that tend to hamper easy mobility.
So what I'm expecting over the next few weeks and months is maybe lazy, maybe hazy, and certainly stir-crazy days of summer. I guess the best I could hope for would be The Summer of My Amazing Luck.
Maybe I'll reflect some more on a suitable way to arrange my books. "Of Human Bondage" springs to mind right about now...
https://www.rebeccahossack.com/artists/72-phil-shaw/overview/
After a friend asked if I was tempted to arrange books on our shelves here to tell my own story, it gave me pause. I may yet try it. But here's a title that come fall of 2020, will probably describe what we're now on the threshold of:
https://inspectorbanks.com/books/the-summer-that-never-was/
Usually I look forward to summer. Outdoor barbecues and picnics at Vincent Massey Park. Music and Beyond. Chamberfest. Folkfest or Cityfolk. Shakespeare plays performed in our local parks. Odyssey Theatre at Strathcona Park. Blockbuster art exhibits at the National Gallery and the Ottawa Art Gallery. The big book sale put on by the Friends of the Experimental Farm. The Victorian Tea. Usually a couple of trips a week to wander through Parkdale Market and stop at the Shouldice stand to pick up locally grown strawberries. Spur-of-the-moment trips to Purple Cow on Colonnade Road to get ice cream cones. Tasting interesting new beers at Beyond the Pale.
Ant then there's travel. This weekend was supposed to be Ad Astra weekend in Toronto. I hadn't registered to go, but I had all kinds of projects I wanted to accomplish while I had the house to myself. Usually my partner attends BSDCan in June, which again I look forward to in terms of please-myself me time. I myself was planning to go to Toronto later this month for the Bony Blithe crime fiction mini-con. And in August, I had planned a trip to Dublin for the annual conference of the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), held each year in a different city.
None of the above will be happening this year.
Strangely enough, as the weather starts to get nice like it is today, I seem to feel MORE dispirited, not less. It's that feeling that by the time we're released from confinement, the weather will be getting cold again, with freezing rain and drizzle and eventually snow... all the things that tend to hamper easy mobility.
So what I'm expecting over the next few weeks and months is maybe lazy, maybe hazy, and certainly stir-crazy days of summer. I guess the best I could hope for would be The Summer of My Amazing Luck.
Maybe I'll reflect some more on a suitable way to arrange my books. "Of Human Bondage" springs to mind right about now...
